Waste Watch: Council officials sent on £7,000 renewable energy trip to Nicaragua

Each week in Waste Watch, The Sunday Telegraph's campaign to expose cases of taxpayers' money being wasted, we highlight how bureaucrats have failed to keep a grip on costs, or have dipped into the public purse to fund unnecessary projects.

By Alastair Jamieson

12:40PM BST 25 Oct 2008

A council spent £7,000 sending its leader, chief executive and two other councillors on a 10,700-mile round trip to Nicaragua and Guatemala to advise local projects about renewable energy.

Labour-run Leicester City Council spent £5,120 on flights and £2,191 on hotels for leader Ross Willmott, chief executive Sheila Lock and councillors Michael Cooke and Robert Wann on the week-long trip earlier this month.

The delegation visited Masaya, Leicester's twin city in Nicaragua. While the other three returned home, Mr Wann, whose cabinet brief at the council includes climate change, flew on to Guatemala to speak about Leicester's renewable energy strategy.

The trip is estimated to have produced more than four tonnes of CO2.

Councillor Peter Coley, Liberal Democrat group leader, said: "This £7,000, which they're spending on a jolly, would be better spent on schools or providing energy advice to people. I think it's an absolute disgrace and a huge waste of money. I have yet to hear a justification for it and I think if you can't justify it then don't spend it."

Three others, from the Leicester Masaya Link Group, went on the trip at their own expense.

Cllr Willmott said: "Nicaragua is the second-poorest country in the western hemisphere, and both the environmental projects and educational links which are being developed can make a real difference to the quality of lives there."

Almost £3 million of taxpayers' money is being spent on consultants by two councils as part of a plan to improve local schools.

Poole and Bournemouth councils in Dorset will each spend an annual £469,000 over three years managing the Building Schools for the Future scheme, which will see £120 million of central government money spent on education projects in the area. The bill for "external support services" is almost as much as the original administrative budget for the project.

Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "This is a black hole for public money. The fact that almost the entire original budget has been hoovered up by consultants is a disgrace."

Barry Watts, programme director for the project, said the prize of improved schools justified the costs, which were necessary because the authorities did not have the necessary internal expertise.

He said: "We place enormous importance in this investment, which aims to transform the lives of our young people today and for generations to come."

A council spent £10,000 on a consultants' report into relocating a war memorial to make way for a new tram scheme, only to abandon the plans amid an outcry.

City of Edinburgh Council spent the money on an external study into whether the Heart of Midlothian War Memorial in the city's Haymarket could be permanently moved to another street.

The 86-year-old monument, which commemorates the sacrifice of the entire Hearts FC first team of 1914 who enlisted for action in the First World War despite heading for victory in their championship, is currently in storage while roadworks for the controversial £500 million tram scheme project take place.

Amid outrage from campaigners and Hearts FC supporters, the SNP-Liberal Democrat council said it would return the monument to Haymarket permanently after all.

Ricky Henderson, an opposition Labour councillor, said: "It is a huge waste of money for what was in any case a very flimsy report. All of this could have been avoided if they had just spoken to a few key people and established the strength of feeling on this issue. Anyone with the slightest knowledge of city history knows the sensitivity of that memorial."

A council spokesman said the report looked at other issues, not just the memorial. "With any large and complex construction project, it makes sense to investigate alternative arrangements," he said.